Ash (2 page)

Most of the people of that country lived on the borders of the Wood in pine-board houses built up close to the trees, where the old magic lingered. South of the Wood the land sloped down in fertile, rich farmland toward the sea. The farmers, who lived in quaint stone cottages surrounded by broad fields, grew yellow squash and long green beans and bushels of wheat. In the very southern tip of the country they grew oranges and lemons, which were shipped north to the Royal 11

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City during harvest season to be made into lemonade and orange punch. The farmers didn’t believe in Wood fairies, but they listened for the tread of field dwel ers and hobgoblins, who could bless a crop or eat it al . They set out bowls of honey wine to tempt the fairies away from milking cows, and left out baskets of fruit to distract them from their orchards.

In a country so fond of its fairy stories, where the people clung to the memory of magic with a deep and hungry nostal-gia, it was no surprise that philosophers and their church faced a difficult task when they landed in Seatown four generations ago. Legends began to spring up about the philosophers-that they were the sorcerers of old who had lost their magic; that they came from the hot desert places of the Far South, where il usions and spel s abounded; that they once were royal advisors who had betrayed their rulers. But the philosophers themselves disliked this penchant for telling tales and insisted upon their own, much plainer history.

They reported that they were indeed from the south, from the empire of Concordia to be exact, and they had come north to spread the wisdom of their emperor. They built churches out of plaster and wood and sat within them, reading books written in foreign tongues. They argued passionately with the vil age greenwitches, claiming that al those fairy tales were nothing but the stuff of nonsense-there were no greenies or goblins. Had anyone ever actual y seen a brag or a dunter or a mermaid? Or were they only stories told to children at bedtime? The greenwitches grumbled in response, and some insisted that they
had
run into klippes at twilight, or seen sprites slipping among the shadows of the Wood at Midsummer.

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Perhaps because philosophers tended to be men and greenwitches tended to be women, the argument took on an overly heated tone. Insults were hurled: The philosophers called the greenwitches superstitious old wives, and the greenwitches retorted that not one of them was married. The greenwitches derided the philosophers as joyless old men afraid of magic, and the philosophers, not surprisingly, protested that they found much joy in the
real
world. And then they brought out their largest tomes bound in gold, the leather covers stamped with the five-cornered star of the Concordian Empire, and threw open the heavy covers. They pointed to the unreadable text and said, “Look! There is the real world. Al our learning, al our experiences, written down fact by fact. There are no myths here; only facts. Fairies are mere fictions. We deal in the truth.”

The oldest, most powerful greenwitch at the time, a wise and wiry woman by the name of Maire Nicneva, laughed at those white-bearded men in their red-pointed caps and replied,

“You shal not discover the truth by being blinded to faith.”

From then on, for a period of at least two generations, philosophers had a hard time in that country. They continued to build their churches in vil age greens dotting the coast, but found it difficult to progress into the interior of the country.

The closer they came to the Wood, the more angry the people became. They were cal ed liars and unbelievers, and while they were never physical y harmed, even children laughed at them—at their strange crimson costumes and heavy, dusty books locked in huge, iron-bound trunks. But one day the King met a philosopher who was less stubborn than the oth-13

Ash

ers, and they sat down together and talked about the smel of spring and the taste of the sweetest oranges, and they grew to like one another. The King even took the philosopher on a hunt, and as hunting is that people’s favorite sport, al the country began to listen more seriously to the philosophers.

By that time the philosophers had also begun to change their approach to this people. Rather than insisting that there was no such thing as magic, they began to merely suggest that perhaps magic was not as prevalent as it once was. They asked, have you ever seen an elf? Or did you work hard on your own to build your house, to feed your children, to put clothes on your family’s backs? And gradual y the idea took root that magic was merely an old country superstition.

The people of Rook Hil , however, the smal northern village where Aisling lived with her father, kept to the old ways.

It was far enough from the Royal City to make the philosophy being preached by the King’s many advisors seem stranger than the fairy tales most mothers told their children. Ash remembered playing in her mother’s herb garden while listening to tales about brownies or picts or selkies. Sometimes the greenwitch Maire Solanya joined them, and she too told tales, though hers were darker. Once she told a story about a young woman who wandered for a month through the silver mines in the Northern Mountains, seeking her lost lover, only to find herself confronted by a family of knockers who demanded her first-born child in return for their help in finding him.

When Ash looked frightened, Maire Solanya said, “Fear will teach you where to be careful.”

Her mother had been apprenticed to Maire Solanya when 14

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she was a girl, and sometimes she taught Ash the differences between various herbs that grew in her garden-feverfew for headache, meadowsweet for a burn—but when she married William, a merchant, she left her apprenticeship. Sometimes in the evenings after supper, they would argue about whether or not she should go back to that cal ing, and usual y Ash remembered those conversations as friendly debates, but once her parents’ voices took on harder tones. “The King’s chief philosopher himself has said that greenwitches do nothing more than calm one’s nerves—which is no smal thing,” William said. Ash had been sent up to bed, but she had come back downstairs to ask her mother a question, and when she heard her father’s voice, she hesitated in the hal outside the parlor.

“Those philosophers only sit in their churches and issue judgments based on inaccurate texts from Concordia,” her mother said. “They know nothing about what a greenwitch does.”

William sighed. “They are not distant scholars, Elinor; they have studied your herbal practices in detail.”

“It is about more than herbal practices,” she countered.

“You know that.”

“Are you saying that al those tales you tell Ash have any ba-sis in reality?” he said in disbelief. “They are only bedtime stories it is superstition, nothing more.”

Elinor’s voice took on an edge that Ash had never heard before. “Those tales serve a purpose, Wil iam, and how dare you dismiss our traditions as superstition? There is a reason they have survived.”

“It wil do you and our daughter no good to align yourselves 15

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with the past,” William said, sounding frustrated. “The King does not follow those ways anymore, and you must understand that keeping to those traditions wil only harm my standing in court.”

Her mother said curtly, “I won’t abandon the truth, Wil iam, and I won’t lie about it, either.”

There was a sharp silence after that, and Ash retreated back upstairs, her question forgotten. It was unsettling to hear them argue; she had never before realized the depth of their disagreement. But the next morning there was no trace of the argument in her parents’ faces. In the months that followed, Ash listened a bit anxiously whenever her parents’ conversation began to turn in that direction, but she never heard them bring it up again. When her mother fel sick so suddenly, her father cal ed Maire Solanya to attend her, and Ash knew it was because he loved Elinor more than his beliefs.

Two weeks after her mother’s funeral, Ash’s father left for the Royal City. At breakfast that morning, she asked him, “When wil you come back?”

“Possibly not until autumn,” he said. Before her mother died, her father would leave them for months at a time to do business in the south. When he returned he would bring back gifts: slippery, shiny silks, or thick woolen tweeds, or toy dolls made of pale, cold porcelain.

“Did Mother ever go with you?” she asked, and he seemed 16

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surprised by her question.

“She did travel with me to Seatown once,” he answered,

“but she did not like it. She said she missed the Wood.” He suddenly looked deeply sad, and he rubbed his hand over his face as if he were brushing away the memories. “She did like visiting the booksel ers’ bazaar, though. She’d spend hours there while I worked.”

Ash asked, “Wil you bring me a new book, Father?”

He seemed taken aback, but then he said gruffly, “I suppose you are your mother’s daughter.” He reached out and ruffled her hair, and he let his hand linger, warm and firm, on her forehead.

After breakfast, Ash sat on the front steps and watched her father and his driver loading trunks onto the carriage. It was a week’s journey from Rook Hil to the Royal City, barring any mishaps. When they were ready to depart, he came over to Ash. She stood up, and he put a hand on her shoulder and said, “Be a good girl and listen to Anya. I’l send news when I can.”

“Yes, Father,” she replied, and looked down at the ground, staring at the toes of his polished black boots.

He lifted her chin in his hand and said, “Don’t spend too much time daydreaming. You’re a big girl now.” He touched her cheek and then turned to go to the carriage. She watched as it pulled away, and she stood on the steps long after it had gone out of sight around the bend.

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After her father left for the City, she went down to the grave every day, usual y at twilight. The letters carved into the headstone spel ing out her mother’s name were sharp and fresh, and the rectangle of earth that marked the length of the grave was stil distinct, but even within a few weeks of the burial, wildflowers and grasses had begun to grow. Sitting with her back against the tree, she remembered a tale her mother had once told her about a fairy who lived in the mountains north of Rook Hil . This fairy was a shape-shifter, and a cruel one at that. If a family had just lost someone, this fairy would visit them, knocking on their door after sunset. When they opened the door, they would see their departed loved one standing there, as real as could be. It would be tempting to invite her in, for in the depths of grief, sometimes one cannot tel the difference between il usion and reality. But those who gave in had to pay a price, for to invite death inside would mean striking a bargain with it.

“What price did they have to pay?” Ash asked her mother.

“Generally,” her mother responded, “the fairies ask for the same thing: a family’s first-born child, to take back with them to Taninli and mold into their own creature.”

“What sort of creature?” Ash asked curiously.

Her mother had been kneading dough that morning, and she paused in her work to look out the kitchen window at the Wood. “You know, I’ve never seen such a creature,” her mother said thoughtful y. “It must be a strange one.” And then to dispel the dark mood, her mother laughed and said, “It’s nothing to worry about, my dear. Simply don’t answer the 18